


Among Strong Men

by asgrandasloving



Series: The Subject Tonight Is Love [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, M/M, Minor Character Death, Office AU, au but not really, office!AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 19:28:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3581178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asgrandasloving/pseuds/asgrandasloving
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In every possible way we conspire to know // Freedom and love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Among Strong Men

“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so?

There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.”

 

**From: Heather Pire (hpire@starkindustries.com)**

**To: US-DL-Defence (ALL)**

Dear all,

Please join us in celebrating this year's festive season at the Stark Industries Annual Winter Ball on December 19th, 2013.

This black tie event, our 199th, will also serve as an opportunity for CEO Howard Stark to renew and relaunch the values, objectives and strategic growth areas of the firm, set out the strategy of the coming year and

Plus ones are welcome. Please RSVP by close of play this Friday.

Best,

Heather Pire

Head of Corporate Affairs

Stark Industries

 

**

 

**From: Steve Rogers**

**To: Tony Stark**

Status: Draft

Tony,

Are you going to the ball? I'm not bringing a plus one, maybe we can go tog

 

Steve closes the email down before he does something stupid like sending it. He isn't prone to dramatics but he can't help but hold his head heavily in his hands. Natasha briefly raises her eyes to meet his and then looks down.

 

**Microsoft Lync from Natasha Romanov:**

_Drinks tonight._

 **

Steve is not a stranger to the oddly profound train of thinking that one can experience when one has downed three shots of tequila in the space of about as many seconds. He does is most introspective, most honest thinking when he’s drunk. His closest guarded insecurities are easy to inspect and reflect on. Ugly truths which he has been trying to avoid are confronted and dealt with. He stops being his own harshest critic and becomes what he thinks of at the time as the best version of himself. But mostly, he likes to share his confidences - pretty much all of them - and it's for this reason that he avoids drinking with the team (hello, deeply unprofessional, he's the boss). It's also for this reason that Natasha has taken him out drinking (hello, deeply unprofessional, he's the boss).    

"It's not a matter of not realising how - how difficult he can be, you know. It's like, you know, like. I can tell that he's like, mind numbingly annoying, and thoughtless and like. I'm talking about a self centredness that's like. Profound. You know?"

"Mmm," Natasha gently pushes another shot glass of amber poison across the table.

Steve knows that she's getting him drunk so he will talk more. He knows it and he also knows that he is probably not drunk enough to account for this much ranting. There is just absolutely no accounting for how much he absolutely without a doubt or a pretty hefty gag, cannot stop talking about Tony Stark.

"There's just no accounting for it!" he repeats. Natasha continues to nod, seeming to understand the entirety of his monologue, although he is sure that most of it was internal.

"But you like him." It's a statement - Natasha doesn't do Steve the disrespect of making it seem like she's digging for what she already knows.

Steve drinks deeply from his tankard, and then deeper still until it's finished. The beer swirls thickly around the familiar sickening pull in his gut. Whoever has decided that the term should be known as 'heart sick' is deluded. It has nothing to do with anything as poetic as the heart. This cold heavy stone inside of him doesn't inspire any romance. In fact, it's the worst, most pathetic kind of sickness - the kind that battles his rational brain and thrashes it ruthlessly every time. It's a sickness, and the only thing worse than how it absolutely batters his integrity, how everyone, everyone, knows about his dumb infatuation (Tony excruciatingly included), is the pathetic little burst of happiness every time he sees Tony's face, smiling, wicked, intelligent and, on occasion, and sometimes toward Steve, kind.

"Yeah," he says, that too.

 

The night comes back into focus several more tequilas-and-beer-chasers later. Steve is drunk. Not too drunk, not falling all over himself but that good drunk. Three European beers (he always forgets how much stronger they are), followed by three shots of bitingly cold vodka (Romanov Special) and that's just for starters.

"I'm okay," he tells his reflection in the restroom. "I've got this, I've got it together."

"You sure about that, pal?" says a voice behind him - nice - Scottish?  Steve blinks blurrily at the body next to him.

Steve, conditioned to immediately be suspicious of Characters, especially Characters in public areas including, but not limited to, the line at the deli, at the gym, in the shower at the gym, at the juice bar, on the subway or in the public restroom, politely takes half a step to the left and thumps his shoulder against the paper towel dispenser, painfully.

"Yeah, I am," Steve says, and there's an awkward pause where the guy kind of does this half shrug like, ok pal, was just being friendly when you're talking to yourself in the bathroom like a lunatic and then Steve feels bad because although this guy hasn't said anything creepy per say, Steve has already assumed the worst of him. He always assumes the worst of people - probably a hangover of spending all day every day with the worst of people, and wasn't that something?

He allows a tiny smiles to lift the muscles of his face a few millimeters off frosty. "Sorry. Had a little too much." They share similarly lifted facial features through their reflections in the mirror while they wash and dry their hands but Scottish guy's seems to actually reach his eyes and then, oh wow, he's actually quite attractive.

A little thrown off, Steve's stomach does another kind of odd swirl but this time, this time it doesn't make him feel quite so sick. 

"Yeah," says Scottish guy. He maintains eye contact longer than Steve thought he would have - past bolshy, past flirting, running rings around outrageous and setting on attractive. His eyes crinkle very gently around his eyes and Steve suddenly gets the impression that this guy is not used to hearing no. "Me too," he finally finishes, then he tosses his paper towels and strolls right out like it was nothing.

 

 

Back at the table, Natasha is, as per usual, courting lonely-heart attentions from all across the room which, once she sees Steve coming back, she begins to summarily dismiss. Steve weaving through the Wednesday night crowd (which can be easily differentiated from the Friday night crowd through a careful consideration of the music being played (no music produced after 1990, no house music shit, no pop), the drinks being ordered (plenty of spirits, no cocktails, no soft drinks and no beers), and the alarming paucity of smiles all around). Steve is already slipping back into the booth when a hand on his elbow, soft but insistent, stops him. Scottish guy.

"Sorry pal, I think you might have forgot something back there," he says, smiling, and Steve finds himself smiling back - his flirting smile which, sure, he pulls out fairly often (he's modest, not dumb - he knows his features hold a certain symmetry which is generally understood to relate to attractiveness), so he knows it's pretty effective.

"Oh yeah?" he asks, willing Natasha, who has a compulsion to sabotage anything that could be cool, to keep her mouth shut.

"Yeah," says Scottish guy, suddenly pulling his card out of his wallet and offering it to Steve. "to ask me for my number."

It's eye-watering on paper, but there's something about how confident he is, about how his accent rumbles softly over the consonants and dips intimately into the vowels of his words that just works and he knows he's not the only one who notices it when Natasha's low swooping whistle cuts straight through the tension between them. Steve, of course, takes the card, his smile now turned a bit shy. He can feel the heat tingle across the back of his neck and his over-active, fuzzy brain supplies a sudden adjacent and (un)related image of Scottish guy - Charles, according to the card, bowed over him, the tip of his nose stroking across that exact spot while he -

Christ - he either needs to stop drinking or to get laid. Soon.

Luckily Scottish guy - Charles - has a fantastic sense of timing and leaves soon after but not before making it very clear that he would welcome a call from Steve very soon.

Which is lucky because that's exactly when the rest of the team walks in, lead by Barton who is clearly looking for them, followed by Bruce, hands gesturing wildly as he explains something to - yep. Stark. Tony. Tony. Oh, Tony. He can feel his stupid traitorous eyes going all doe-soft.

"Now what's wrong with this situation?" Natasha murmurs straight into Steve's ear as he desperately breathes deep  to sober himself up."Handsome, successful senior manager at leading defense contractor just gets cruised by handsome, similarly successful - director of research at a significant Big Pharma firm," she reads off Charles’ card, "with searingly hot accent who doesn't believe in mixed messages and he can't stop making stupid mush eyes at Tony Stark: self obsessed, heartless, cruel and emotionally maladjusted heir apparent of said leading defense contracting firm and who happily seizes every possible opportunity to tear your stupid heart to pieces," she finishes on a hiss. "Take care of this, Rogers."

She’s right, of course she is, which is why Steve flings himself right off the edge of “drunk” and straight into “absolutely smashed” aided in most part by Tony who continues to buy him drinks even after he has said four times that he needs to be at work early to prep for the initial scoping review.

“Do yourself a favour, Rogers, and shut the fuck up and have another drink,” says Tony. He’s pressed right up against steve, not quite three sheets to the wind but maybe two or at least one and a half, pushing their bodies together shoulder to shin, because the booth is only supposed to fit four people and six of them are being a good go at it. He’s warm and already a bit sweaty but he smells familiar and Steve can’t stop himself from leaning slightly into him under the guise of their busy table to feel the solid support of Tony’s body right there.

Steve insists on weak American beer in an effort to stave off the worst of the disgraceful behaviour he knows he is capable of and briefly attempts a short address on the Concise History of the American Brewing Industry but doesn’t get much further than a few mumbled words about crop subsidies artificially buoying otherwise unviable businesses before Tony puts a hand on his shoulder and says, “It’s ok Cap, you can have the weak nancy beer if that’s what you want,” and the rest of the team roars with laughter and despite the fact that Tony takes way too many liberties and has a flagrant disregard for respecting his professional elders, Steve feels happy, kind of, or maybe hopeful - like maybe this thing he has for Tony isn’t the worst idea in the world. And maybe he does know how Steve feels, and maybe that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world and maybe, his brains provides as he drinks deeply from his Coors and Tony flashes him a small, private smile, maybe Tony is on the same page.

**

The next day, Steve wakes up with a filthy hangover and no keys, wallet or cell. He has no idea how he got home. He’s frankly astounded that he wasn’t robbed through the night: his front door is wide open. He spends long minutes in the bathroom looking at himself long and hard and asking why, with alarming frequency and disregard of general health guidelines, he keeps getting drunk with the team and waking up with what Barton likes to call ‘The Fear’.

He bribes an angry Haitian cab driver to take him downtown while he wolfs down an improbably greasy bagel which continues to percolate through his digestive system as they weave through downtown traffic. Both the cab and the bagel are paid for using his emergency stash, located in a small envelope underneath the fruit bowl, which was created for occasions exactly like this. It’s bright as hell, in an unforgiving, Old Testament, wandering the streets of downtown LA for 40 years kind of way. Steve gratefully leans on the everlasting arms of the greasy cab windows, cool against his flushed face. The darks behind his eyelids welcome him into some semblance of recovery for a few sweet minutes.

The traffic in LA has never been something that makes him too anxious - he puts up with it when he has to, but generally speaking - he goes to work so early and comes back so late that he misses the worst of it. The driver, placated with his up-front $50 bill, seems to have calmed down significantly, gently dipping in and out of lanes, casually swinging a friendly expletive to his taxi driver buddies out of his rolled down window and gently mumbling along to top 40 tracks on the radio. Steve’s mind lightly glances over a few topics he’s been mulling over - Tony, his recent promotion, the slight tension with Natasha who had also been going for a promotion and who hadn’t, surprisingly, been successful, Tony, pulling the team together, doing some networking calls for business development opportunities, Tony, setting his professional goals, Tony, and the drinks last night when, as far as Steve can tell, Tony was maybe sending one or two signals of his own.

The place had been dark, granted, and within an hour of Tony arriving with the rest of the team, they had all been completely hammered but Steve has a flickering memory in the deepest tequila drenched recesses of his mind of him and Tony outside the bar, Tony having a smoke (which he can never resist when he has had a drink) and Steve abstaining but having volunteered to come out with him anyway (and Jesus, now he’s sober, how could Tony not know? He was so painfully obvious) and them sharing a few heart stopping smiles while Steve shuffled around, hands jammed in his pants pockets, shoulders.

He’s so caught up in this, so intent on remembering whether, later back in the bar, it was his own hand which had reached out to briefly rest on Tony’s or Tony’s on his, that he doesn't even have the opportunity to process that the taxi driver has been leaning out of his window a little too much and watching the road a little too little before, at the corner of Judah and 123rd, the cab hits a cyclist who goes flying through the air, bounces off the bonnet of the SUV in the next lane and lands lifeless half on the sidewalk, half on the road. The violent stop that the driver brings the car to flings Steve almost out of his seat and, on his return to an upright position, causes him to crack his skull off the metal frame of the door, knocking him senseless.

Steve wakes up in an ambulance on the way to Marina Del Rey where he sets about arguing for his release for the next few hours until about lunchtime. Although they are highly  suspicious of his lack of ID, despite or probably because of his smart clothes, Steve is actually fine - a mild concussion which was exacerbated by the small distillery he’s got flowing through his veins but all Steve wants is to get out of there and get to work - where they are probably assuming he’s got his head stuck in a toilet bowl, the fuckers. With some fairly ardent promises to take Tylenol and come back if he gets worse, Steve leaves, this time ordering a corporate car to take him the rest of the way to work, because fuck it, he was in an accident and the firm can pay for him to go back to work.

Its funny, he later thinks, how easy was to get so caught up in the drama of his own life. As he walks through the office, he doesn’t really notice anything amiss, too busy wondering how he is going to make the story of what happened to him as dramatic as possible so that he can hopefully get a day off from Fury, and maybe they can all take a long lunch although, fuck, it’s already two in the afternoon and Jeez, hopefully they aren’t too worried about him.

It’s not until he gets to the team office area that he stops short. Fury is in Steve’s office, perched on Steve’s desk, talking to the rest of the team who have formed a close ring around him. Everybody looks grave. Steve almost makes a comment about them over-reacting, how he’s only missed the morning, and if they want to talk about people rolling into work long after they should have done, maybe they could reminisce about Barton after that TED Conference in Canada with the moose antlers but then Natasha looks him dead in the eye and he knows this is something else.

Fury gestures for him to join them and then says, “Steve, we just heard. Maria Stark, Tony’s mother,” he says, and then pauses, glances to the rest of the group. “Well, I’m sorry to say that she’s died. She was killed last night.”

**

**To: Stark, Anthony (US - Los Angeles) - astark@starkindustries.com**

**From: Stark, Howard (US - Global ExCo) hstark@starkindustries.com**

Subject: Pitch preparation

Anthony,

I thought your eulogy yesterday morning was very dignified. Your mother would have been very proud. I'm sorry I wasn't able to stay and talk to you afterwards.

Can we meet at my office tomorrow at 9am to go through the contract please.

Kind Regards,

Howard Stark

 

**To: Stark, Anthony (US - Los Angeles) - astark@starkindustries.com**

**From: Rogers, Steven (US - Los Angeles) srogers@starkindustries.com**

Subject: [No Subject]

Tony,

I was really sorry to hear about the passing of your mother. Please let me know if you need anything at all. We've all been thinking of you here.

Yours,

Steve

 

Steve Rogers

Business Development Manager

Stark Industries

 

**To: Stark, Anthony (US - Los Angeles) - astark@starkindustries.com**

**From: Facilities Management, Los Angeles -facilitiesla@starindustries.com**

Subject: Photocopier Damage Ticket #7810299

Dear Anthony Stark,

A ticket has been raised in your name regarding the damage of photocopier HP-EZPC-1178 on the 58th floor of the LA office. The description of the damage is described as follows:

"Tony continues to think that photocopying his sweaty balls is appropriate office behaviour. The glass screen now needs to be replaced as a matter of hygienic and business urgency."

Please click on the link below to access the ticket online and provide your departmental cost centre for maintenance fee recharge purposes.

Regards,

Facilities Management

Stark Industries

Los Angeles

  


**To: Stark, Anthony (US - Los Angeles) - astark@starkindustries.com**

**From: Facilities Management, Los Angeles -facilitiesla@starindustries.com**

Subject: [RECALL] Photocopier Damage Ticket #7810299

The sender would like to recall the above message. Please discard and delete.

**

**To: Stark, Anthony**

**From: 70811ikolfifks@memail.com**

Subject: Independent Insurance Advice for Stark, Anthony! 

Hi, Stark, Anthony!

Click herrre for great Insurance advice!

 

 

Tony wakes up on Thursday morning with his Blackberry notification light blinking obnoxiously by his right eye. His mouth is gummy and tastes like rancid fat, stale cigarettes and filthy street meat. A bottle of something amber lies on its side a foot away - it's long since finished spilling the rest of what he couldn't drink last night and points toward a dark damp patch on the carpet which, when Tony moves minutely towards it, smells strongly of scotch. The good stuff. What a waste. This damp spot is followed by another which trails, traitorously, to the opening of his trouser leg. The carpet closest to the bathroom is dressed with rancid vomit. The curtains are wide open. Long Island sun sings down at him. The a/c is set too low - the room swelters.

He's been drinking solidly for almost 24 hours. That's not even the best of the benders he's ever had but it's certainly up there. He supposes it's fitting, given - well.

Jarvis taps gently on the door and it swings open a few seconds later. His face, when he enters, is everything Tony can't handle at the moment. Quiet, kind, sympathetic, respectful. He deserves none of these things. "Sir," Jarvis starts and Tony shakes his head as much as he can from his space on the floor, by the window. Jarvis nods minutely and retreats. Tony gets up only to relieve himself - properly this time, in the bathroom, before climbing into bed and closing his eyes.

**

The next time he wakes up, it's early evening and the various bodily substances have been cleaned off the floor and a large glass of water and some Advil are on his bedside table. Jarvis has left a note in his quiet, unassuming handwriting next to Tony’s phone which is charging and winking furiously at him. He takes the time to visit the bathroom again and catalogs a series of aches and bruises across his body and an interesting new tattoo, apparently, wow, that hurts. When he comes back, Jarvis has left some dry toast and orange juice and more water on a tray. He downs all of the liquid, ignores the toast, his phone and the note and goes back to bed.

 

**To: Stark, Anthony (US - Los Angeles) - astark@starkindustries.com**

**From: Stark, Howard (US - Global ExCo) hstark@starkindustries.com**

Subject: Re: Pitch preparation 

Anthony,

Please read through the pitch briefing notes before we meet tomorrow morning. Please also shave and remove the goatee.

Kind regards,

Howard Stark

Stark Industries

 

**To: Stark, Anthony (US - Los Angeles) - astark@starkindustries.com**

**From: Rogers, Steven (US - Los Angeles) srogers@starkindustries.com**

Subject: Re: [No Subject]

Tony,

Your father mentioned that you were coming into the office tomorrow - is that true? I'm sorry, I don't mean to pry but I just wanted to say that if it's too soon for you to come back then I'll happily take the buck - there's nothing you know about the pitch that I don't.

How are you doing? Let me know if you need anything, again.

Steve

 

Steve Rogers

Business Development Manager

Stark Industries

 

**To: Stark, Anthony (US - Los Angeles) - astark@starkindustries.com**

**From: Potts, Pepper (US - Los Angeles) ppotts@starkindustries.com**

Subject: Condolences

Tony,

I'm sorry it's taken me this long to get in touch. I think I didn't know what to say and by the time I did, my emails to your personal account keep bouncing but I thought I heard your father mention that he'd talked to you and you'll be in the office tomorrow so I thought I'd try and get in touch with you here. I don't want what happened between us to stop us from being able to talk. Can we meet if you're coming in tomorrow?

Love,

Pepper

 

Pepper Potts

HR Director

Stark Industries

 

**To: Business Development DL - ALL (US)**

**From: Fury, Nicholas J (US - New York) njfury@starkindustries.com**

Subject: Office Move

All,

Due to the increasingly political nature of the Federal defence contracts we have been completing for, the decision has been taken to base all business development teams on the Eastern board until further notice. For the purposes of office allocations, all teams will be assigned to either the New York or the DC office.

Please look out for further office move information in the coming weeks.

Nick Fury

Director

Business Development

Stark Industries

 

**To: Stark, Anthony (US - Los Angeles) - astark@starkindustries.com**

**From: Fury, Nicholas J (US - New York) njfury@starkindustries.com**

Subject: RE: Office Move

Stark,

Come to my office as soon as you get in please.

Fury

*

Tony's first day back in the office is predictably bad. He already knows from the brief glances at his Blackberry that his inbox bulges under the weight of his father's fury which, given that his father hasn't so much as written a memo in living memory, is actually the proxy weight of his father's PA's fury.

His office is just as he left it, save for his in-tray, which is overflowing with hard-copy-only documents. As he sits down he notices an envelope tucked under his mousepad with his name written in a familiar handwriting.

 

**Microsoft Lync from Tony Stark to Claudette James:**

_Please don’t put any calls through for the rest of the morning - I have a lot to catch up with_

 

**Microsoft Lync from Claudette James to Tony Stark:**

_Understood. And can I say, Mr Stark, I was very sorry to hear of your loss._

 

**Microsoft Lync from Tony Stark to Claudette James:**

_Thank you Claudette_

 [window closed]

 

He pulls out a single plain white card and reads the note: "You've been in my thoughts. Steve."

There is a deeper and slightly spread out dot of ink at the top of the 'm' of 'my', as if Steve had been thinking about which word to use there for some time and forgot to lift his pen. There's a certain exposed tenderness to it that Tony can't get past - an unsheathing of something small and delicate from Steve which is now reaching out, across the ether and the corridor, to touch the similarly small and delicate part of Tony which has now been exposed. It says - 'I'm here' and 'I am invested in your wellbeing' and 'if something happened, I would care'. Tony hears it, has been hearing these unspoken words for some time now with Steve and has been too chickenshit to do anything about it.

He thinks back to the night at O’Neal’s and the shit eating grin on the guy who had passed Steve his card and the white-hot flame of lizard-brain jealousy at the smiles they shared with each other. He remembers gently rubbing over the long smooth line of Steve’s palm, pulse hammering through his chest but feeling punch drunk at the same time. He thinks of Steve, insisting on escorting him out so he can furiously drag on a cigarette while the noise of the bar (growing as the after-work crowd continued to lament the fact of the working week). He thinks of Steve’s eyes which are, in no particular order: clear, smart, fierce and the kindest he’s ever seen. There's a metaphor he wants to use about muddy boots on pure white snow but before he can get too morose, there's a knock at his door and Fury lets himself in.

"Stark," he says and then sits down. Tony takes the opportunity to slip the card in his inside jacket pocket. Fury crosses his legs

"Fury," Tony says back and waits. Please God, no more sympathy.

"I was sorry to hear about your mother," Fury says. He stops, as if to see how Tony will respond. Tony, never quite sure how to act around Fury, except with deference and some fear, nods and says nothing. It appears to be good enough for Fury, who uncrosses his legs.

"We just got notice of a billion dollar arms deal. It’s going to need a lot of glad handing form your father and some of the higher up executives but for the actual bid development work, I want to send your team out to do it.I've sent around an email. You'll be in New York for the next year."

Tony doesn’t have much to say about that - the daily grind is the same, whichever side of the country.

Fury’s almost at the door before Tony thinks to ask -

"Am I taking the lead on this?"

Fury turns around and gives him the eye. "Not this time, Stark." 

*

**To: Stark, Anthony (US - Los Angeles) - astark@starkindustries.com**

**From: Rogers, Steven (US - Los Angeles) srogers@starkindustries.com**

Subject: Re: [No Subject]

Tony,

I heard you've been in the office today. I thought maybe we could have a quick catch up over coffee?

Steve

PS, did you get my message? I left it under your mouse pad but your PA was acting as if I went in there and planted a bug so wouldn't be surprised if she threw it away. Let me know.

 * 

Pepper corners him twenty minutes after Fury leaves, and Tony can’t think of a way to tell her to fuck off without seeming supremely rude. "Pepper," he says, eyes thinned and faced stretched in an approximation of a smile.

"Oh, Tony," she says, rounding the table without breaking stride and putting both arms around him. He submits to it: understands this to be the currency of kindness people feel able to give in the wake of his own grief. It's not completely horrible - in fact, he can imagine why this kind of thing is comforting. His temple rests on the chiffon pillow of Pepper's breast and he breathes in deep the warmth and lavender and laundry detergent from her blouse. It reminds him, inexplicably, of his mother who, although not so slight of frame, had smelled just as sweet and had, in his younger days, held him the same way. It isn't sexual at all - those days are long over between him and Pepper and how they ever thought it would work is beyond him - but it is loving and, abruptly, Tony can't handle it anymore.

"Hey, Pepper," he says, pushing her off as gently as possible without dumping her straight on the floor. A fierce itching burn starts up at the back of his eyes, and he swallows, and swallows again, already feeling hot tears go down the back of this throat. "Sorry, you actually caught me at a bad time - I have a meeting to go to."

"Oh, I -" Pepper starts and then trips to a stop and Tony know he is caught. Pepper is diligent, clever and never misses the detail. She was a natural choice for HR director because not only does she know how to bring out the best in people, she knows how to recognise the worst in them as well. But more than that, she chooses her moments perfectly: if there is one thing that Pepper always does, it's to check with Claudette how much time Tony has until his next meeting. Graceful as ever, she only nods and slips out the door and past Claudette which a quiet: "Ok. See you soon, Tony."

*

**To: Stark, Anthony (US - Los Angeles) - astark@starkindustries.com**

**From: Rhodes, James - jr11807@defence.gov**

Subject: this is not a drill

Anthony, pick up your phone

Rhodey

*

He ends up seeing Steve briefly on the way to New York when somehow Claudette books them on the same exact flight despite Tony's explicit instructions on the matter. 

“Tony,” he says with a big smile. They’re in the first class lounge and Tony is downing bourbons as fast as the harried bartender can pour them. Steve gracefully ignores this and orders a club soda with lime as he sits down.

Tony nods but doesn’t say anything else. He suddenly feels inexplicably tired.

“How’ve you been?” Steve asks. Tony can tell that Steve is deliberately not shying away from asking this - as many people have (and he’s certainly not made it easy for people to be kind to him). Tony shrugs, doesn’t say much more and Steve doesn’t push it but doesn’t leave either.

They stay in the first class lounge together for another hour and a half until final call is made on their flight and then Tony loses him when they board the plane and Tony turns left and Steve, surprisingly, turns right.

“Been leaning kinda heavy on the cab expenses lately, thought I’d do the right thing and fly coach. ‘Sides, keeps me humble,” says Steve, already heading down the aisle, one hand raised in casual farewell.

When Tony gets to his seat (which is via a lengthy exchange with a rude air hostess-trolly dolly-cabin crew-what-the-fuck-ever-you were supposed to call them these days who doesn’t agree that he should be served a bourbon at his seat, 3A, immediately),  a young guy, maybe college, maybe grad school, shaggy hair and big eyes, is settling into 3B. Clearly a complementary upgrade. Clearly a talker. 

“Can you believe it, dude?” He starts toeing off battered converse and messing with the in flight entertainment system built into his seat. “Some big guy just came up to me in my seat back in coach and asked if he could switch with me! Says he doesn’t like being at the front of the plane, reckons his best chances of surviving a crash are in the cheap seats. Big guy though, like Superman big. Pretty sure if anybody was going to survive, it would be him.”

Tony blinks, glances ineffectually back at the coach seats which have been now shielded from their view by the cabin divider curtain.

The kid is still talking, has pulled out a candy bar from his napsack and is stuffing his face with it. “But I say, if you’re going down, you’re going down. Might as well do it with reclining chairs and real forks, y’know?”

“Yeah,” says Tony, finally turning back in his set. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to notallbees for encouraging me to keep this going, especially when I was close to giving up.
> 
>  
> 
> My soul is like a young doe-eyed maid  
> With lips still bruised from last night's divine passion  
> But my Master makes me live like a humble servant  
> When any king would trade this throne  
> For the splendour my eye  
> Can see.
> 
> Call it many things, give your desires polite names  
> If you must; mask the primal instinct from your  
> Reality if you cannot bear that sacred edge  
> That will hone your ken against  
> The sun and earth
> 
> Amon strong men in the Tavern  
> I can speak a truth no one will laugh at: My heart  
> Is like a wild alley cat  
> In heat;
> 
> In every possible way we conspire to know  
> Freedom and love.
> 
> Forget about the common reason, Hafiz, for it only  
> Enslaves - there is something holy deep inside  
> Of you that is so ardent and awake
> 
> That needs to lie down naked  
> Next to  
> God. 
> 
> -Hafiz


End file.
